[Illustration: THE YOUNG MAN AND THE SWALLOW.]
A prodigal Young Spendthrift, who had wasted his whole patrimony in
taverns and gaming-houses, among lewd idle company, was taking a
melancholy walk near a brook. It was in the month of January; and
happened to be one of those warm sunshiny days which sometimes smile
upon us even in that winterly season of the year; and, to make it the
more flattering, a Swallow, which had made his appearance, by mistake,
too soon, flew skimming along upon the surface of the water. The giddy
Youth observing this, without any further consideration, concluded that
summer was now come, and that he should have little or no occasion for
clothes, so went and pawned them at the broker's, and ventured the money
for one stake more, among his sharping companions. When this too was
gone the same way with the rest, he took another solitary walk in the
same place as before. But the weather being severe and frosty, had made
every thing look with an aspect very different from what it did before;
the brook was quite frozen over, and the poor Swallow lay dead upon the
bank of it: the very sight of which cooled the young Spark's brains; and
coming to a kind of sense of his misery, he reproached the deceased bird
as the author of all his misfortunes:--'Ah, wretch that thou wert!' says
he, 'thou hast undone both thyself and me, who was so credulous as to
depend upon thee.'